HELENA — Testimony in the trial against a Montana lawmaker accused of taking illegal corporate contributions ended Friday with a tense exchange between Rep. Art Wittich and the special prosecutor appointed to make the case against him.

The Bozeman Republican is on trial over allegations he coordinated his 2010 campaign with and received a wide range of services from eight nonprofit corporations affiliated with the National Right to Work Committee.

The case was expected to go to the jury Friday after closing arguments. Jurors will decide whether there was coordination with the outside groups, whether Wittich received services from them and if so, what their value was.

If the jury finds against Wittich, the penalties could include his removal from office.

Wittich was the final witness to testify. He asserted that he hired a Livingston printer to conduct a direct voter mail campaign for him and to build a website, and that he properly paid for and reported the work in his campaign reports.

If Right to Work staffers were doing any of the work, or if other affiliated corporations were sending letters supporting his candidacy or attacking his opponent, he wasn’t aware of it, he said.

Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl led the prosecution against him because of Wittich’s conservative beliefs, the representative alleged. Motl has brought the full resources of the state of Montana against him, Wittich said.

The past 2 ½ years from the investigation to the trial has been “pure misery,” Wittich said. His name has been smeared, his campaign de-legitimized and his voice gagged in important policy matters as a result, he said.

Special Attorney General Gene Jarussi, through questioning Wittich, recapped the case that he had built up over the five-day trial: That Right to Work groups wrote voter letters for Wittich, told him which candidate surveys to answer, gave him prepared voter lists, built a website for him and trained him as a candidate. Plus, affiliated gun-rights, anti-abortion, anti-tax and anti-union groups wrote letters to voters on Wittich’s behalf supporting him and attacking his primary election opponent, Jarussi said.

Jarussi tried to pierce the persona Wittich presented of a beleaguered public servant, leading to a sharp exchange between the two. He had Wittich acknowledge he had publicly called Motl a political hack on a witch hunt and suggested that Wittich was lying to the jury to save his skin.

“You’d say almost anything to avoid accountability, wouldn’t you Mr. Wittich?” Jarussi said.

Wittich responded that he wouldn’t say anything if it wasn’t true.

“This is why people decide not to run for office. When they see something like this going on, against a normal person who wants to serve the public, this is why people don’t want to run,” he said.

Jarussi contends that the value of the services Wittich received from the Right to Work groups totaled more than $20,000.